The O'Reilly Fracture: Keith Olbermann's Ratings Blow Billo Away

[DeepModem Mom]

Daily Kos: The O'Reilly Fracture: Keith's Ratings Blow Billo Away
by KingOneEye
Mon Sep 10, 2007

Keith Olbermann's Countdown has reached a milestone that many thought was out of reach. After getting a boost from an airing during the pre-season football broadcast on NBC a couple of weeks ago, Countdown has burst into a real competition with its nemesis, The O'Reilly Factor.

The highpoint of the week for Olbermann was Friday when he bested O'Reilly in the 25-54 demo by 39,000 viewers. But the trend has been heading this way for a while. On Thursday, O'Reilly took the hour, but Olbermann had won the first half (Countdown: 408K - Factor: 373K). An average of all airings for the shows for the week gave O'Reilly a lead of just 11.7K demo viewers. A year ago O'Reilly was clobbering Olbermann by 279K. Are the walls closing in around you, Billy?

The first full week after Olbermann's NBC appearance, Countdown spiked 17% over its 2nd quarter 2007 average. This week that bump is 37%, so there is no evidence that this train is losing speed. The Factor, on the other hand, is still under-performing its 2nd quarter average by 16%. O'Reilly is quickly becoming the Little Train That Couldn't.

A key point in this victory is that, while last week's success was achieved with O'Reilly on vacation, this week Bill was on duty and he still got his loofah handed to him. Also, for the record, Olbermann appeared during halftime on the Saints-Colts game which might have given him an extra push. And the week was shortened by the Labor Day holiday (Countdown did not air but O'Reilly did. The Factor pulled in just 329K which was its 2nd worst number for the week).

All of this leads me to quote from the insightful analysis of truly visionary media scholar:

"Hopefully NBC will recognize what’s happening here. And it isn’t just that Olbermann is a phenomenon who warrants additional network attention (although that’s true). It is also that there is a vastly underserved market for mainstream progressive news that is factual and compelling. That is a message that all of the media should heed and act on. It’s time to stop coddling losers like Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson. It’s time to stop pandering to rightist, corporate media. It’s time to start reshaping the media into something more diverse and representative of America."

Mark @ News Corpse ~ September 4, 2007....

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/10/205541/652

[WCGreen]

1. Tucker is absolutly a black hole for ratings...

No matter where they put the fella, he can't seem to attract many eyeballs...

[Mike Nelson]

11. Yeah, who is he doing...

...to stay on the air so long?
...and, who'd want him?

[mwb970]

21. Well, his guests are usually OK. /nt

[TahitiNut]

2. I hope Billo swallows his own tongue and chokes on it.

:party:

[Mike Nelson]

12. Difficult to wish evil befall...

...but Bill Orally is an exception!

[Horse with no Name]

3. People are hungry for the truth.

Too bad our Congress is not.

[Mike Nelson]

13. Why don't the Democrats do anything?

Like tell the truth about bush and arrest him?

[bleever]

4. "...a vastly underserved market for mainstream progressive news that is factual and compelling..."

That's a core truth here.

Way to go, KO. We knew this day was coming.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Always cautious, I NEVER saw it coming. I halfway expect the Earth...

to shift on its axis. Do we dare hope now for a dimished audience for Limbaugh?

[bperci108]

8. I could've sworn that I read somewhere that the OxyMoron's audience was...

...indeed shrinking.

Add to that the fact that O'Liely's audience is dying off, since they are primarily white males that are about as old as Stonehenge.

:rofl:

[bleever]

9. Of course, there is shrinkage...

Karmic result of denying global warming.

[calimary]

10. Yep. A VASTLY underserved market. We've been left out in the cold

so long most of 'em have forgotten about us. And I'll bet they're stunned - where did all those numbers come from??? And now, if they're really noticing it, watch all the Keith-lite types start sprouting. There's some overbearing young-middle aged loudmouth on in segments on CNN now. And it'll be very HARD to clone, too, unless you're a great writer and you have a particular mindset and almost an outlaw appeal on camera. I'd have guessed someone would have snapped up Brian Unger by now, for that reason. He's pretty good. Not Keith, but pretty good.

[bleever]

14. The marketing area of the corporate brain would be tempted

to imitate KO's style, and miss the whole point. Like that Fox stab at doing The Daily Show.

KO has made it cool to tell the truth, but it's his courage an honesty that make the style work, and not the other way around.

Same for Stewart, and Colbert, and hey, maybe all of us.

[bbgrunt]

5. Go Keith!!!!

[Beausoir]

7. Just....K&R!!!

[Polemicist]

15. It looks like Chris Matthews has noticed Countdown's success...

I was stunned tonight, immediately after Petraeus/Crocker were finished, to find the first two guests on Hardball (at least the first two I saw), discussing the testimony, were Eli Piesner (sp) of MoveOn.org, and Markos of Daily Kos.

Now Matthew's plan seemed to be to ambush MoveOn about their add in the NY Times today. But Eli handled that easily and the Kos tore apart the fake "withdrawal" canard being advanced by Petraeus/Bush, as being something that had to be done anyway, due to troop rotation limitations. Kos pointed out they were trying to get credit for something they really had little choice about.

But what I liked, was seeing two Progressive faces up on a cable news show at the same time. Two real actual Progressives, not a couple of beltway poser fake Democrats. And as a longtime viewer of cable news, I can honestly state this is the first time I've ever seen this happen. I've seen paired radcons on TV many, many times. But a pair of Progressives? Never. And especially not immediately following as important an event as the General's long anticipated catapulting of Bush Iraq War propaganda.

I'm thinking maybe Olbermann's ratings success is waking up some broadcasters to the possibility of raising their own ratings by perhaps sharing the populist perspective a tiny bit. It is, after all all about the ratings. So always TIVO Countdown. That counts as well.

[calimary]

18. Yep. They ARE noticing Keith's ratings. You better believe they're

noticing Keith's ratings. They ignore Keith's ratings at their peril. They're suddenly noticing that the momentum's building in a direction they were out of the habit of considering. For years now, it's been all-CONservatives-all-the-time, wall-to-wall in all day parts. Nary a liberal voice to be heard. CONservative talk show hosts, even now, are a dime a dozen. Nothing special about them anymore. And forcryingoutloud, it's been like that FOR YEARS. When that's all you're offered, for some the meal starts getting stale and the yearning comes for something fresh and different in its place. Somebody's FINALLY noticing. The NBC brass certainly are. They're seeing the ratings upswing in the past few days since they added Keith on the football telecast and paired it with a sample "Countdown," exposing it, and Keith, to an audience that hadn't known of him before. And seeing is believing. They saw. Evidently more than a few of them stayed.

Not only that, but beating o'really head on is not something that escapes notice, either.

[King Coal]

23. Liberals. It's ok. You can say it. They're liberals.

:hi:

[Polemicist]

25. Now is that really necessary....

Why would you assume I fear using the word liberal, just because I used the word progressive? In my opinion, they are interchangeable and there is little to no difference in the true meaning of the two words.

I simply prefer the word progessive, as I believe it better imparts the proper impression that we are for progress for society. Unfortunately, most Americans don't realize the roots of liberalism and don't understand that all our founding fathers were actually liberals. And that most of the great thinkers of the last three centuries were liberals. And I think it reflects positively on the great era of progressive reforms in America from the end of the 19th century through the New Deal.

Unfortunately, conservative control of American media has perverted the publics impression of the term liberal. So it is actually advantageous to use progressive instead. And I often do. But I will never, ever shirk from being an admitted, proud liberal.

It's simply a better branding of our cause.

[Beausoir]

26. Good post! Thanks. n/t.

[Hubert Flottz]

16. The simple "Factor" is Billy & Bushie...

People are tired of lying liars.

[LaPera]

17. We forget Keith was all by himself...remember that....out there....man,

turned out to be smooth...Bout that? Now, they'll be chasing KO for everything now, smooth, hip and trying desperately to find real...real....tell us ALL KO -- Whats Real----.... KO relaxes, smoothly................. ----~~~~~~or very difficult...KO is a true pro very aware... hes been there before....even more overwhelming *******************UNION IS THE WORKERS only VOICE*******************.....WE DON'T HAVE LOBBYIST FOR OUR CONCERNS..... SO HOW CAN WE WORKERS, ASSURE OUR SELFS OF ANYTHING? VERY DRUNK INTO THE NIGHT ERE!!!!!!!!!!!!zZZZzZZZ..........so sorrily, so inarticulate, I am........

[tblue37]

19. Doesn't matter. Phil Donahue had the highest ratings on his cable channel

(MSNBC, I think)--but was dumped because he was antiwar.They don't care about ratings. The corporate media masters care about supporting the overclass and the BushCo administration.

[momster]

24. But if the public isn't buying

then the corporate masters aren't making the money that they love above all so they start looking to sell what the public wants to buy. So if the public will buy liberal programming, the corporate types are going to put that on the air. They've already started by moving Joe Scarborough to the a.m and following K.O. with this Dan Abrams guy who shadows what K.O. does. I'm pretty sure the right hasn't figured out that Dan isn't still doing Joe's old program...I can't figure out why Buchanan was on if he was really listening (kind of like the right thinking Colbert was on their side before the Correspondent's Dinner).

Anyway, the corporate guys follow the audience. Give 'em what they want and the advertisers will pay for those eyeballs. The corporate guys don't have to like the content, and undoubtedly sneer at those who do, but they love that money.

[baby_mouse]

27. Abso. They don;t get to tell us what to think.

They are finally beginning to realise not only that they don't control society but that they can't and attempting to do so is counterproductive.

[Alizaryn]

20. I am so happy for Keith (and for our country)

that the truth actually is getting a shot. What sums up the difference between Olbermann and the BillO'Reilly's of the world is the statement Keith made during the negotiation of his contract this year. The network wanted him to keep his "special comment" portion and he agreed on the condition that they were scheduled at his discretion, when he had some thing to say and not just to promote himself. That sums up Keith Olbermann, Countdown and how they differ from others.

[Netbeavis]

22. speaking of former ESPN....anybody know what Dan Patrick is doing?

Dan and Keith are good friends and often apeared on each other's show. Dan has often referred to Keith as the lone man saving the democracy.

On Dan's website, danpatrick.com, he shows that he is coming back on Sept, 20 at 12pm EDT.


just wondering if Dan is dropping the sports format and coming back with something else.

Air America Part 2? (wishful thinking)


just wondering.